Just over a year ago, I discovered a fun (and free!) app called duolingo, which turns learning a second language into a game. After playing around with the app casually for a few weeks, I decided to challenge myself. One year ago, I challenged myself to take at least one lesson every day for a year. That’s 365 days, in a row, of learning Spanish. That was exactly one year ago today. Yay me, right?

So, after one year, how am I doing? What have I learned? It turns out, I’ve learned quite a bit. According to duolingo.com, I’ve learned 1,327 words, which puts me at Level 16 (there are a max of 25 levels and you need more and more XPs, duolingo’s term for points, to advance levels):

You might have noticed that the streak displayed above (days in a row using the app; the number on the left) isn’t 365. Yea, I explained that what happened during my two week European vacation. I’m still frustrated at duolingo customer service for never responding to my inquiries.

I’ve used the lingots to “purchase” timed practices and a couple progress quizzes. As you can see, my proficiency has waned in the last three months:

My proficiency declined again from three months ago.

I’m a bit perplexed by this. Perhaps my quiz six months ago was an anomaly. I’m dunno. But according to duolingo, I can read almost 60% of real spanish text.

So there’s this.

So, one year later, now what? I’m still sticking with it. Although my duolingo app doesn’t recognize that I’ve completed a course everyday, I know I have. I’m determined to have the app recognize my hard work of doing taking a lesson each day. I’ve increased my participation goal to complete two lessons a day – let’s see if I can keep up the pace until December 2015!